


lying in a bed of greed

by ikvros



Category: Given (Manga)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Prose Poem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 12:17:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19927957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikvros/pseuds/ikvros
Summary: There’s something about Ugetsu after a performance.





	lying in a bed of greed

**Author's Note:**

> i felt a lot of things about the scene in chapter 16, with the panels of ugetsu playing the violin woven into their intimacy, and i had to let it out _somehow._ hence, this *gestures vaguely*
> 
> [listen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlYBDSbTn5A)

There’s something about Ugetsu after a performance.

Or perhaps there’s something about _Akihiko_ after seeing him perform—after witnessing what he knows is otherworldly talent, after being reminded that the man he shares a history and a house with is unspeakably gifted, and hopelessly ephemeral in his presence. Maybe Akihiko just wishes to grasp it, in any way he can—in a fistful of Ugetsu’s wrinkled shirt, his flushed cheeks, his fingers, calloused from a lifetime given to strings. 

His cock, as Akihiko slips his hand inside his undone slacks and strokes it to hardness.

_Why don’t you ever learn, Akihiko?_

Learning—well, that’s never been the issue, has it? Learning has always come naturally to him. Instruments, studying, how to survive the nights he doesn’t have a home to return to (the trick to the last one is a sharp, provocative smile, and to never utter the word _no—_ Haruki had once called him a jack of all trades, blind to the full, ugly truth of those words).

Learning is as sure as the heartbeat in his chest, inevitable with every note and beat of music he plays, every moan he pulls from Ugetsu’s lips. Every time he thinks he’s figured them out completely, mastered one or the other to his own ability, he’ll draw out a new, exciting, beautiful sound. Learning is what Akihiko does, who he is.

But forgetting? 

He’s no more likely to forget how the notches of Ugetsu’s spine feel beneath his fingertips than the cut of strings—and somewhere along the way, they became nearly impossible to tell apart. Forgetting what it’s like to sink inside him, how it feels to dig the long-buried desire from his chest and drag until it sees sunlight, how Ugetsu looks at him in these moments like he might actually still love him back; and forgetting how he plays the violin—with virtuosity unmatched, with unfettered, wholehearted _yearning_ —it’s simply not in him. 

How is he to leave behind what he can’t forget? How is he even supposed to want to?

 _“Aki—”_ Ugetsu gasps, followed by a whine so high and sweet that it makes Akihiko _burn,_ and he tightens his grip on the backs of Ugetsu’s thighs, pushes them further into his chest, and fucks him harder. 

Ugetsu shakes beneath him, face crumpled, dark hair splayed across the feather down pillow, open and honest in a way that he hardly ever otherwise is. Akihiko’s pent up, desperate, chasing what he’d seen and felt in the concert hall. He can still taste the energy of Tchaikovsky’s concerto on Ugetsu’s fingers, the lingering vibrato of his excitement, his wildness, and Akihiko takes it greedily for himself. 

The slap of his hips against Ugetsu’s ass, Ugetsu’s moans, his own labored breathing—none of it rings as loudly in his ears as the lively cadenza in the first movement, the way Ugetsu had played just as he had rehearsed a million times and still not at all like anything Akihiko’s ever heard. It filled the hall, it had _belonged,_ like the walls had been built for that sole purpose, like Ugetsu had always been meant to flood and contain his feelings within them.

Akihiko has smoker’s lungs—he hadn’t stood a chance against drowning. 

The moment his hands slacken in the weight they bear down, Ugetsu winds his legs around his waist. Akihiko leans down to kiss him, though it’s more an open slide of tongue and shared breath, the harsh jerking of their bodies forbidding anything more languid or structured. It’s messy, and dirty, and yet Ugetsu feels like something unmarred beneath him, something that isn’t able to be dirtied or claimed, no matter how many marks Akihiko leaves down the pale column of his throat. 

Those fingers—the ones that have learned an instrument as an extension of themselves, the ones that have destroyed without intent a gift, a heart, the ones that have touched Akihiko time and time again and taken a part of him every time they come away—they dig into his back, nails biting, crescenting into the skin until he thinks they might actually draw blood.

Ugetsu arches beneath him, mouth open in a silent cry, and Akihiko hears a bow pulling across notes so high and clear they should be impossible, should sound like mindless, ear-splitting shrieking, but Ugetsu had _played_ them, had found them and forced them between the hair and the strings with command Akihiko could never hope to have over his own violin. 

He’ll just have to settle for this, for swallowing the sounds as they're poured into him, for the crescendo between them now as it mounts.

And as soon as it does, it quickly wanes, little notes fluttering, fading in and out as the last pulses of orgasm coax Akihiko’s hips forward. He drops his head to Ugetsu’s shoulder, panting into the skin there, pressing soft, thoughtless kisses as they both still, and everything quiets. 

They stay like that for a few moments. Nothing fades in except the whir of the AC, and Akihiko’s own racing heartbeat.

He doesn’t realize there are tears in his eyes until he pulls back to find a bead of wetness sliding down the ridge of Ugetsu’s collarbone, catching the golden hour light streaming in from the window, sparkling as it settles into the dip just beneath his adam’s apple. And it’s only when Ugetsu’s fingers gently touch his cheek that Akihiko finally, finally meets his gaze.

He hates the pity he finds there. The sorrow. What must lie in his own, to have Ugetsu look at him like that. 

But he’s still _looking_ at him, still holding him close, still indulging his hope that they’ll stumble back into the rhythm of their old life, the one that leaves neither of them wanting anything or anyone else—and that, Akihiko’s learned, is all Ugetsu can give him for now.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading ♥ follow me on [twit](http://twitter.com/ikvros) if you want, and i'll see you next time!!


End file.
